Annie Jones - Marrying Minister Right

The door swung open and shut.

A burst of wind stirred the grit-filled air.

Michael shut his eyes intending to send up a prayer dart, a quick, focused plea for…

He needed guidance about Avery. He needed clear views and insight and the sort of inner peace that only comes from quiet contemplation. He needed to find a way to put the woman who had held his heart for more than a decade out of his thoughts for good.

“I need a cold soda,” he muttered. He opened his eyes and took a step, bumping into the old vacuum. Dust flew, dancing in the sunlight once more and leaving a film on his arms, shirt and jeans.

Life, Michael reminded himself, came from the dust. Which seemed very appropriate, because at the moment he felt like dirt.

“You are the only person I know who takes time off from work to do some more work.”

“I’m not staying in High Plains. I have hotel reservations in Kansas City that they will only hold until 6:00 p.m. By tomorrow I’ll be shopping on the Plaza. Today I’m just stopping in for a few hours, maybe half a day, to check on the cabins. They are my responsibility now, you know.” Heather kept both hands on the steering wheel of the SUV that had come to her after her father’s death. She tried to keep talking and driving to a minimum but today she welcomed the company, though she could have done with a little less static from Mary Kate in her earpiece.

“Your dad has only been gone a few weeks, Heather.” Mary Kate seemed to need to remind Heather. “After all those days shuttling between work and caring for him in the hospital, you’ve had almost no time to grieve.”

“We each grieve in our own way, in our own time.” Heather had been grieving the absence of Edward Waters almost her entire life. In their last few days together, they had reached a resolution that was at least satisfying. Edward had let her know how much he appreciated her visits and she had thanked him for providing for her so comfortably as a child and for leaving her the bulk of his estate, including the cottages in High Plains. “I’ll have plenty of time for…for myself once I get the temporary intake worker set up here. I left High Plains a long time ago. There’s nothing to keep me here even a few hours longer than necessary.”

She went gliding past the cottages. Since she had agreed to meet the intake worker in town, she did not stop at her property. Though they had really begun to show their age, the cottages looked pretty good at first glance. Needed paint and some cosmetic shoring up, clearing away of dead brush, but otherwise, not bad.

As always the river that lay beyond them wound on in a swift, constant current. It served to remind her that life went on. God’s eye was on every living thing and even when things seemed out of control, He was always in charge. His will, His plan remained steadfast.

“Nothing for you in High Plains?” Mary Kate asked. “Are you sure? Not even that cutie-pie of a minister?”

Heather clenched her jaw and stared at the road. “I have no intention of even seeing Michael Garrison. Trust me.”

“Wow, Heather.” Without a tsk or a tut or a cluck, just a subtle shift in the tone of her voice, Mary Kate slid into mother-hen mode. “Isn’t it awfully hard to drive that way?”

Heather leaned forward, squinting at the horizon, not letting her assistant’s attitude intrude on the moment as she scanned the once-familiar road. She should have seen the first signs of High Plains by now. But all she saw was dirt—trash blowing about and the occasional downed tree.

Finally, she sighed, showing her impatience with her own faltering memory, which must have all but rewritten the landscape around her. She asked, “Drive what way?”

“With that big ol’ chip on your shoulder?”

“I don’t…I didn’t…You don’t understand. Michael was my friend since…”

She passed the spot where a sign that welcomed people to High Plains had once stood and saw only two posts thrusting up out of a concrete base. The posts were twisted and bent like the gnarled branches of a long-dead tree.

She was at the edge of town, where Main Street should have been populated with well-kept buildings and neatly groomed sidewalks. She turned her head to look at the park that lay between the cottages and the Old Town Hall.

Heather took her foot off the gas pedal as the realization hit her. It was not her memory that had faded. She was seeing the first signs of High Plains, of what was left of High Plains. “Oh, Mary Kate. It’s gone.”

“The chip?”

“The town.” Heather managed only a whisper as she scanned the space from where the gazebo used to stand to the bare spot where the Old Town Hall, a symbol of the very heart of the community, had once stood. “I have to go, Mary Kate. I’ll call you later.”

If her assistant protested, Heather did not know. She took the earpiece off and tossed it onto the seat next to her.

She looked at the rubble, then toward the town stretched out along Main Street ahead of her. Here and there something remained seemingly untouched. Trash and leaves blew about, the empty sidewalks giving the place a sense of being neglected and abandoned.

She had thought she was prepared for what she would find, but she had not counted on the potent mix of sparseness and destruction and her own muddled emotions. Her eyes stung. She willed herself to stay strong and calm.

Never let them see you cry.

Tears did not change things. They had not made her father love her and they did not inspire confidence in people looking for reassurance in times of turmoil. These people had gone through enough without a weepy former local showing up and adding to it. She had to focus. She had to fix her mind on what had brought her here.

She lifted her eyes and caught a glimpse of High Plains Christian Church at the end of Main Street. Aside from a few odd-colored shingles, the obvious sign of patching on the roof, it looked just as it had that summer day ten years ago when she had run off and left…

“Michael?”

Loss and embarrassment, feelings she could not define and the memory of a happiness she had long forgotten came crashing in on Heather at just seeing Michael Garrison again.

She let the car roll to a stop as she concentrated on the lone figure walking along Main Street toward the church. If she had not seen him on the news the day after the twister, Heather doubted she would ever have imagined that the tall, broad-shouldered man in faded jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt could be the same kid who had taught her not to be afraid of a pop fly. Or the skinny teenager who had allowed her to be like a member of his family and thus learn the importance of one. She certainly wouldn’t have guessed it was the young man she had smacked in the face with a wedding bouquet.

Still a block away from the church, she watched the man in front pause and look up toward the steeple. Sunlight tipped his dark brown hair in golden highlights. He lifted his hand, the one not holding two cans of soda, to shade his face. He stood there a moment as if gathering strength. But for what?

Heather needed only to glance around her to have her answer. Michael Garrison loved High Plains. He loved his family, who had built so much of the town. She did not doubt that he loved his congregation. Right now, all the people Michael loved were trying to come to terms with the agony and confusion in the aftermath of this catastrophe. Of course the man needed strength.

What a blessing that he knew he could find it—from the Lord, first, but also from the town, from his family, from his congregation and from…

“Me.” Heather could all but see how Mary Kate would give her best “What am I going to do with you?” head shake at that. She didn’t care. She had come to High Plains to see if she could help, if there was anyone in need.